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The present study aims at expanding research on dehumanization in the work domain by exploring laypeople's dehumanizing perceptions towards stigmatized workers. Starting from Hughes’ (1951, Social psychology at the crossroads, Harper & Brothers, New York; Ashforth & Kreiner, 1999, Academy of Management Review, 24, 413) concept of ‘dirty work’, the present research aims to demonstrate that the different types of occupational taint elicit distinct dehumanizing images of certain occupational groups. Employing a cluster analysis, the results showed that workers in the physical taint cluster were most strongly associated with biological metaphors, workers in the social taint cluster were perceived as most similar to objects, and workers in the moral taint cluster were perceived as most similar to animals. The theoretical and practical implications are considered.

The present studies aim to expand research on dehumanization in the work domain by exploring the biologization – an unexplored form of dehumanization that involves the perception of others as infected and contagious – of physically tainted workers. By integrating the literature on biologization with that of disgust and physically dirty work, we expected that the biologization of workers would be explained by their dirty work environment and by increased feelings of disgust towards them. In Study 1, we showed that focusing on a dirty work environment (vs. on the person performing the work) increased feelings of disgust towards workers and, in turn, their biologization. Coherently, in Study 2, we found that a physically tainted occupation (vs. baseline condition) increased participants’ feelings of disgust and biological dehumanization towards the worker. In contrast, a non-physically tainted occupation (vs. baseline condition) had no effects on disgust and biologization. The theoretical and practical implications are considered.